Part 3: Flow of the Game

One Hand at a Glance

It is divided into four stages

1. Preflop

   0 board cards

   You decide using only your 2 hole cards

2. Flop

   3 board cards

   A lot of new information arrives at once. The most important stage

3. Turn

   4 board cards

   The pot gets bigger and decisions get heavier

4. River

   5 board cards

   All the cards are out. The final decision

The common flow

• At every stage it repeats: “cards are dealt → everyone acts in turn”
• If everyone else folds along the way, it ends right there. It does not always go to the river

Step ① Post the Blinds

The hand starts here

BoardBTNSBBBUTGHJCOD

What happens

• The SB puts in 0.5BB
• The BB puts in 1BB
• At this point the pot is 1.5BB

Points

• They are put in before seeing the cards
• It is forced, regardless of the players’ wishes
• These two players start the hand with chips already in

That is why the BB is in a position to call cheaply.

Step ② Deal 2 Hole Cards

Only you can see these 2 cards

A♥K♠

The order of dealing

• One card at a time clockwise from the SB, going around two times
• It has no effect on actual play

Each player is dealt 2 cards face down.

These are called hole cards.

You show these 2 cards to no one until the showdown.

Decisions start here

• Looking only at these 2 cards, you decide whether to play
• How to choose the hands to play is the existing “preflop chart”

There Are Only Six Actions

This is all you can do in poker

Action	Meaning	When you can do it
Fold	Give up. Throw away your cards and leave this hand	Any time
Check	Pass the action to the next player without betting anything	When nobody has bet
Bet	Put chips in. The act of putting chips in first	When nobody has bet
Call	Put in the same amount as your opponent and stay in	After someone has bet
Raise	Bet more than your opponent, on top	After someone has bet
All-in	Put in all of your chips	Any time

How to remember it

• Nobody has bet → check or bet
• Someone has bet → fold, call or raise
• There are only these two patterns

Three Pairs of Terms That Are Easy to Mix Up

The words are similar, so let’s sort them out first

Check and call

• Check: pass it on for 0 (free)
• Call: put in the same amount as your opponent (costs chips)
• You can check only when nobody has bet

Bet and raise

• Bet: the first chips put in when nobody has bet
• Raise: adding more on top of an amount already bet

A “check” can also be signaled by lightly tapping the table.

Check and fold

• When you can check, there is no need to fold
• Folding when you could see the next card for free is just a loss
• This is the most common operating mistake beginners make

What raises are called

• The 2nd raise = 3bet
• The 3rd = 4bet
• Because the first raise is not counted as 1bet; the BB counts as the 1bet

When a Betting Round Ends

The moment the next card comes out

There are two ways it ends

• ① Everyone has put in the same amount (or everyone checked)
• ② Everyone but one player has folded

In case ①

• The next card is dealt and the next stage begins
• It goes on like preflop → flop

In case ②

• The hand ends right there. Only one player is left, and that player takes the pot
• There is no need to show any cards
• In fact, most hands end this way

So what matters is

• You can win without making a hand
• “Making everyone fold” is a perfectly good way to win

Winning by making them fold is called a “bluff.” It is an idea at the center of poker.

The Order of Action

It differs between preflop and after

BoardBTNSBBBUTGHJCOD

Preflop

• It starts from the player to the left of the BB (UTG)
• The BB has already put in 1BB, so it acts last

From the flop on

• It starts from the SB (if still in the hand)
• The BTN is last. That is why the BTN has the edge

The later you act, the more you can decide after seeing your opponents’ actions. This is what the advantage of position really is.

The Minimum Raise Rule

If you do not know it, you will get stuck at the table

The basic rule

• A raise must add at least as much as “the previous raise added”
• Example: your opponent made it 3BB (1BB → 3BB, adding 2BB)
• The next raise is at least 5BB (3BB + 2BB)

The upper limit

• In no-limit there is no upper limit. You can go all-in at any time
• This is where the name “No-Limit Hold’em” comes from

You do not have to memorize the minimum; the software blocks it automatically.

Estimates of actual raise sizes

• The first raise preflop → 2.5BB is standard
• A 3bet (the 2nd raise) → around three times your opponent’s
• From the flop on → 25 to 100% of the pot

You decide not by amount but by the share of the pot.

All-In and Side Pots

How it works when someone does not have enough chips

What all-in is

• Betting all of your chips
• Since you cannot pay more, you take no part in further betting
• You can see it through to the end without folding

What a side pot is

• A mechanism that separates the part the all-in player can win (the main pot)
• from the part made by bets beyond that (the side pot)

The software also does this calculation automatically. It is enough to know how it works.

A concrete example

• A goes all-in for 20BB
• B and C each put in 50BB
• Main pot: 20 × 3 = 60BB → contested by all three: A, B and C
• Side pot: 30 × 2 = 60BB → contested only by B and C

Even if A has the strongest hand, A cannot win the side pot.

Showdown

The players left at the end show each other their cards

Who shows first

• The player who last bet or raised
• If nobody bet, the player in the earliest seat
• They show in clockwise order

A player who is losing does not have to show

• You can say “muck” and throw your cards away without showing them
• It is a choice made so as not to give away information

The image of “a game where you make hands and show them to each other” is quite different from reality.

Judging the result

• Make the strongest 5 from 7 cards and compare
• If they are exactly the same, the pot is split (a split)
• Online, this is judged automatically

How often hands reach a showdown

• In practice, about 20–30% of hands
• The rest end at the point someone folds

Check

From the flop on, which seat acts first (when that seat is still in the hand)?

• UTG
• SB
• BTN

See the answer

The SB. From the flop on, action starts from the SB and the BTN acts last (the section “The Order of Action”).